Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma and his program leave the Big East on top but in some ways still left behind because of all the conference realignment. / Derick E. Hingle, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

NEW ORLEANS -- Geno Auriemma's first Final Four was 1991. Connecticut lost, and he still remembers the fearful question he asked himself that day, having watched his players act as if they felt they didn't belong.

"I thought, 'What if we never go back? There's other teams that made the Final Four that never went back . . . What if that's what Connecticut is?'''

Twenty-two extraordinary years and eight national championships later, the big stage newcomer has become a dynasty, and the fretting young coach a legend. Now the question is very different.

When will it ever end?

Connecticut, looking every inch the re-polished crown jewel of women's basketball, cut down the nets Tuesday night. Again. The Huskies program lives on that ladder.

So then what was there left to do after Connecticut blew away Louisville 93-60?

Turn out the lights on the traditional Big East, the party's over.

The final wrap came Tuesday night, not with Rick Pitino's Louisville men â?? he sat in the third row behind the Cardinals' bench, by the way -- but an all-Big East women's national championship game that turned into one team's statement of its return to greatness.

How appropriate for the champions to be there at the end. They are probably the biggest victims of all in this breakup, and isn't that awkward? The Connecticut women.

The Catholic 7 have their own new land. Notre Dame will do fine moving to the ACC. Syracuse and Pittsburgh will do fine. Louisville will do more than fine. Imagine Pitino's lads in Cameron Indoor Stadium to meet Duke. It'll take about 30 seconds for that to become a rivalry.

They are currently one of the most renowned programs in the nation, any game, any gender. Connecticut is to the women's Final Four what turkey is to Thanksgiving tables. The Huskies were led in Tuesday's rout by freshman Breanna Stewart's 23 points and sophomore Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis' 18. And they ain't leaving early for the NBA.

Auriemma is now 8-0 in national title games, and it is unlikely this was the last one. He is even in titles with Pat Summitt, whom he honored by saying he had joined the greatest coach in the history of women's basketball. Now John Wooden's 10 is out there, though Auriemma said he thinks that is coaching apples and oranges.

Whoever he is chasing, or not, it is easy to see that Connecticut could be on the cusp of another title binge.

"It's so hard to look ahead," he said. "So many things have to go right."

This was a tough one. This was the season the Huskies lost a crushing three times to Notre Dame, and the horizons did not seem quite so vast. After the third defeat to the Irish in the Big East tournament, Auriemma decided that something had to change. That the dread of losing had grown too deep.

"He looked at us and said, 'You know what, we when get back together, I'm going to show you show you how to win the national championship," senior Kelly Faris said. ""Sure enough, we're sitting right here. "I'm happy to have him on my side."

Auriemma changed his message, but not the most important one he gave as the tournament dawned: "We're Connecticut, and we go into the NCAA Tournament with a different mindset than everybody else."

Consider that, as the Auriemma empire celebrates its eighth championship. Or while surveying a wondrous Tuesday box score that had Huskies shooting 53%, hitting 13 of 26 3-pointers, with a winning margin that was 10 points more than the old record for a championship game.

"Winning tonight validates a lot of what we wanted to do, and what we aspired to be," he said. "We've done an awful lot for women's basketball at the University of Connecticut. Someday when they write the history of women's basketball, we'll be prominently mentioned, and I'm pretty proud of that."

But unless something else happens, look what conference showdowns they have to look forward to. Connecticut vs. SMU and Tulane, in a league whose new name doesn't quite yet ring a bell. As Jim Boeheim called it, "The American whatever."

Oh well, nothing beats getting deserted like needing an annex soon for all the trophies. And Auriemma can continue his custom of booking ranked non-conference opponents in the way Las Vegas books comedians.

His team will keep contending. Auriemma could not imagine a season without that, though his program has pushed into that rare air where it demands so much of itself, even as it labors at what the outside world assumes. "It bothers the hell out of me," he said, "that there's this assumption we should win it every year or we should lose in the national championship game every year."

It was somehow fitting that the Big East fade to black came in New Orleans Arena, next door to the Superdome â?? where 31 years ago, the Georgetown men lost the national championship game to North Carolina on Michael Jordan's late shot. The Big East's first big moment.

The last one was the Connecticut women, in a class by themselves, crushing a team that had upset Baylor and played like a chosen underdog. If Pitino wanted to jet in and lend support, he should have brought Chane Behanan and Peyton Siva to play defense.

"Everyone was on the same page," Stewart said. "That's what we were working towards all season, playing a game like this."

So Tuesday night was Auld Lang Syne. And a brilliant reminder that nobody stacks up the titles anywhere right now like Geno Auriemma. That Final Four loss in 1991 and the doubt after seemed a lifetime ago. Matter of fact, it was.

"When I wake up tomorrow morning, my life is not going to be that much different," he said. "But we've got players on our team that their lives have changed forever now."

Lots of things have changed. But not Connecticut alone at the top. The Huskies have been left behind, and still are ahead of everyone. There is no end in sight.